blowing through the cobwebs of my mind

Morning musings

Well, I didn’t post yesterday. It might be my first day missed, or maybe my second: I seem to recall one Sunday I was too hung over to type. I feel a little lazy about it, but I’ve 145 posts and over 3,500 views and twice last week new records were set for most views in one day (thanks, YukonSocks and unknown person who read nearly every post). I also had my two-month blogging anniversary on Sunday, but I was busy… I guess it’s okay I that I took a day off.

I did nothing yesterday. It was me wearing two shirts, two pairs of socks, two blankets and two cats on the couch most of the day. We found new free TV channels so I gorged on CSI and SVU. Always loved napping to those shows in the US. I like them because I don’t have to care about the regular characters; I can dip in and out and not miss much.

Right now, I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire with Spot. He is annoying me to no end by trying to rub on the corner of my iPad. Gerroff! The sound of his little teeth clicking on the plastic cover drives me crazy.

I’ve another lazy day planned. iDJ broke the hinge on the oven door Saturday, so I need to try to fix that. I’m sure I’ll get sucked into cleaning it, too. Which means first I have to do dishes so my sink is free. Ugh, I’m so tired of doing dishes. Sigh. I also keep meaning to try this recycled-materials recipe for homemade firelighters. I’ll be using the butt-ends of old candles instead of new wax, though, and I’ve been collecting dryer lint and egg cartons for a while, too.

I also have to take a bath. That means turning on the electric water heater and cringing at the red numbers on my Wattson. (It want from 91 watts used per hour to 2,110!) But, I can’t take showers any more, not without suffering. I don’t know what is wrong with my skin, but I have to soak, scrub, soak, scrub to get the dead layer off. A shower just gets it wet and then I itch for an hour. It’s truly disgusting to see my bath water after – I almost need a shower to rinse off my bath. Wish I knew a dermatologist, but they are harder to see here than a back doctor. The internet hasn’t been helpful; as usual, I’m unusual.

Great. I went upstairs to start filling the bath. I got sidetracked watering plants. I came back to the fire to find it had just collapsed and a chunk had flown out and burned a pillow. Glad it didn’t burn Spot! He was only a hands-breadth away.

I have a KIBIS meeting tonight, yay! Last week was postponed due to a cold, then cancelled due to a back injury – and it wasn’t me either time! Unfortunately both happened to MrsMMC. Three of us had a long goofy conversation via FB’s messenger on Friday, though, wherein we decided we should dress up as the Pink Ladies from Grease and enter a float based on the song ‘Look at me I’m Sandra Dee’ in next year’s Paddy’s Day parade. Except we think we should wear red, because all four of our home countries use red in their flags. I said I’d think about it, if I can be Rizzo. They want to have a bowling night, too, so we could reuse the Red Ladies jackets for our bowling team. I don’t enjoy bowling, did it once when I was six and never wanted to do it again – despite the fact I’m good at it on the Wii. But the gals are such good craic, I might put up with it.

The ‘Grease’ idea came out of someone saying that the menfolk are jealous of our KIBIS meetings, and think we all gather around in sexy lingerie and have pillow fights. Uuugh, men. Yes, we’re all gorgeous gals, but really?!? A few weeks ago we spent a half an hour talking about stab wounds and how to recreate them in rising bread dough, autopsies, what weird and/or gross foods we eat in our home countries, and drinking. Soooo girly!

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I didn’t know there can be a difference between taking a shower and taking a bath, well, I mean to the skin. Surely it’s a different feeling but I thought it was only a matter of comfort. Is your skin reacting badly to the cold weather?
Winters here are very mild. Last winter we went for a walk in the mountains, just half an hour or so, and it was – 8C there. My skin was ( pardon me) coming off in layers after that (a very weird reaction taking into account that my skin used to endure – 35C in Russian winters)

Morning! Well, not anymore. I’m like this all year around. It is getting worse as I get older. If I sit in a hot dry office my skin cracks and peels, especially my hands and face, so I’m glad in that way not to have a job. I use the exfoliating scrubby gloves, they help a lot! But I soak for a while, scrub off a layer of skin, soak some more… And the next time just as much skin comes off! The hot water doesn’t last enough in a shower for that. Now I’m getting an allergic reaction to something, I had to cut my bath short today. I don’t know! My nails are weird and my hair won’t grow any longer than it is, so there is some issue with me for sure.

I’m not a doctor, but if you scrub your skin too often it will get irritated and it will look like an allergic reaction. I’m sure you knew it yourself, but just in case.
As for the hair – it is programmed to grow up to a certain length and not more, yours has probably reached that limit.
Although those things with your skin do sound like unpleasant problems, have you ever consulted the doctor, as you say you’ve been having it for a long time? I also thought about the lack of some vitamins or eczema.
Anyway, I hope it gets better, it’s very unpleasant when something like this happens.

It’s not eczema, I looked into that. And plain water wi no scrubbing brings up the red dots (no itching). The scrubbing never caused a problem, and I haven’t changed the soap or cleaned the tub with anything but my soap. I tried using Epsom salts last week and that was a mistake! Maybe I’m worse now because of that. Maybe our water is contaminated, maybe I’m suddenly having issues with the soap I’ve used for years! I can deal with the red spots, they go away. It’s the huge amount of skin I shed that worries me, it’s a lot!

Sounds like any normal day to me. Big prob. w/ being disabled in a house of working women: I’m expected to keep after the house and dog. Have to take methadone and a Vicodin just to make it through the dog walk. Then, it’s dishes, vacuum, make the bed, clean the bathroom, wash the floor, etc. ad nauseum. To I need too mention that virtually none of these thing get done on my watch? Basically, it’s the dog and the dishes; off to the store for dinner that no one eats…which creates more dishes. And no time spent writing…which bought this stupid house to begin with! What a mess!

OMG! Me neither! I’d just be like, “Oops, I dropped this candle. Can you put this out?” “Oops, I accidentally-on-purpose turned the fire sprinklers on. You’re all wet now. You should probably take that uniform off. No…shh…slower.”:D

We have a dishwasher… it’s a great place to store pots! Damned thing was jury rigged by guy who did the house work when we were buying, and in the end we had to disconnect the water. We’d probably never use it much anyway, we just rarely use enough dishes to do so with just the two of us.

The egg crate fire starters work WONDERFULLY. We used dryer lint and left over candles and ones I hated and “tada”! They seem to burn off pretty cleanly.

This isn’t going to help you at all but it sounds like something one of Kwix’s co-workers had. His whole body developed a sort of thick skin that at times would crack and hurt. Specially his hands. The doctors never really figured it out, but steroid injections apparently helped. For a long time he would fill gloves with lotion and sleep with them on his hands.

Speaking of soap, have you tried homemade soaps (I know they aren’t cheap). Most soaps we buy now are not soap technically, they are detergents. Even when it is soap, it has no glycerin. That’s removed to sell separately and a lot of people find it soothing.

Sense I’m not working I do pretty much all the house work. It only seems fair to not make Kwix do it when he gets home from work. The downfall is it takes me forever. I do 15 minutes of dishes, sit down, 15 more minutes, sit down. Same thing with laundry and everything else. I don’t keep a perfect house, but at least Kwix doesn’t have to do it.

If your hair won’t grow and your skin looks like a dry lake bed, you should have your thyroid checked. Google it. I was trying to figure out how old you are, then you mentioned Sandra Dee and I raised an eyebrow…hmmm.
Oh, I may be the one who read all of your posts. I’ve been blog surfing out of sheer boredom lately and I think you were on someone’s blog roll. You have a catchy blog title :) and I like cats. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog.

Thanks! I like to do that too; it’s how I came to start my own blog. I think I had it checked in 98/99, as I did have a lot of those symptoms then! My skin looks okay unless I have to sit in a heated building, then it dries out terribly. I thought it was a winter thing, but not having a job for nearly 2 years showed me it was the office! I like it cool – just realised it is 15c in here (59f). Brr!
No secret, I’m a bit younger than you but not too much :) Turned 40 this year. Still surprised I made it this far!

I started my own blog too, but I spend more time reading than writing. At 40yrs, I find it hard to believe that you even know about Sandra Dee! Amazing! Glad to hear you’ve followed up on your symptoms! I’m a decade or so ahead of you, so I’m more surprised than you are (at making it this far) :).